Andorra, Japan, Japan Cover, U.S.A. and Wales

Hey today is Tuesday. Time for another update, although cards have been rather sketchy arriving. They seem to be dribbling in one or two every day or two. With that , I have a few cards and a cover for today. As the title says, cards are from Andorra, Japan USA and Wales.

First up , let's have a look at the card from Andorra. Even though it's quite small , I think Andorra is definitely on the list of places I would like to visit. One day I should put that list on the blog just for the record. Now at least you know Andorra will be there. On Jean Pierre's card we see an old bridge and an old tower. He used 2 Coat of Arms definitives from 2010 along with 1 of 2 stamps in a 2010 souvenir sheet, a joint issue with Spanish Andorra.

My next card is from Japan. I can't tell you anything about the front of the card, who he might be or anything . The card was sent by a Postcrosser in Yokohama City. She used a stamp released on the day she wrote the card, June 21st, a special stamp , a semi-postal, with a contribution for the Japan earthquake of march 11, 2011. A worthy cause indeed. Also notice the special postmark on the stamp.

Now, as I mentioned at the start, it was indeed Tuesday when I started this update. Needless to say I didn't get it finished. It's now Saturday, I took a few days off for a little R & R in the mountain parks. We spent time in Banff National park and Yoho national Park. It was great being in the outdoors , hiking, walking and cooking up. Of course I bought a few postcards , posted a few in Banff , so if you feel lucky, look in your mailbox in a little while.

Once again, it's Saturday, so time to get this update finished. I don't know what date will appear on the blog, but no matter. Ten cards awaited me on arrival home, last evening, so I have a few great cards for the next update.

Now, back to the cards at hand.
An interesting thing about the card from Japan above, is that it was posted way back in June and then returned to the sender, because of the postal lockout in Canada. Then it was put in an envelope and posted again on 10 July, after the lockout was over. So I got great stamps both times. A real bonus. One more thing, have a look at the sticker the sender sealed the envelope with, it matches the front of the postcard exactly. Pretty neat, I have to say.

My next card comes from Anchorage, Alaska, USA. It is a view of Marathon Mountain in Seward, Alaska, from around 1946, from the look of the cars on the street. The stamps on this one include a 2003 American Clock definitive , a Forever Love stamp from 2011 and one other that I find the most interesting. Another 2011 Forever stamp showing the Messenger spacecraft. Messenger was launched on August 03, 2004. It entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, the first spacecraft ever to do so. It is 1 of 2 stamps issued for the Mercury mission, the other one shows Alan Shepard, one of the original Mercury astronauts.
Nice stamp.

The final card for this long overdue update comes from Wales and was sent on Postcrossing's 6th anniversary. The picture is a reproduction of an old British Railways poster advocating Travel By Train. The beach at Aberystwyth is the subject and it's where Holiday Fun Begins according to the poster. A 76p Machin definitive was used on this card.

Well, that does it for this update. It took quite the time to finish up but I hope it was worth it. Leave a comment and let me know. My next update will have some of the 10 cards that arrived while I was away and for sure, there's good stuff there. Tune in soon .

Thanks to one and all who sent these cards.

New Country # 248, Korean Air A380, Kaup Light House and A Church Afloat

Hello again, I know you all checked in to see what my newest country is, so here we go. Caribisch Nederland, # 248 of my collection, leaving just 25 more to go. Caribisch Nederland is 1/3 of the former Netherlands Antilles. It became independent , at least stamp issuing wise, last Oct 10th. The other 2/3 are Curacao and Sint Maarten. I have a card from Curacao but still require one from Sint Maarten. Caaribisch Nederland consists of Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba, the so called BES Islands. My card is of The Bottom, the capital of Saba, and is compliments of Jean Pierre who recently travelled there. Jean Pierre used 2 of the new U.S. Dollar rate stamps , issued on June 01st along with an older Netherlands Antilles stamp from 2009.

Next card is from Hong Kong and will be a great addition to my Airlines/Aircraft on cards collection. This one is a Korean Air A380 and is compliments of Michael of cddstamps.
Michael's blogs can be found here and here and his stamps website is here. Michael used a 2006 bird definitive on his card.

Card # 3 is from India. It shows Kaup Light House, built by the British in 1901. It is a 34m high circular stone masonry tower. Nagi sent this card along and he has a postcard blog called Sids Hobby Center and you can find it here. He wrote on his card that he is a regular visitor to my blog. One more reader , I'm growing by leaps and bounds. Nagi used 2 great new stamps issued this year to celebrate 100 years of airmail service.Nice card , nice stamps.

Final card for today comes from the state of Washington, U.S.A. It is a card showing Megler Church in Ilwaco, Washington. It is one of the oldest churches in the town and sadly when this picture was taken, one would need a boat to get to church. MMToo much rain , apparently. No stamp here as the card arrived in an envelope. Why , I don't know, your guess is as good as mine.

That is my update for this time. Thanks to Jean Pierre, Michael, Nagi and The Cadinha's. I think this was a great update, of course, any update with a new country is just outstanding for me.
As always, tell me what you think, if you want. If you don't want to comment, so be it.
Take care.

Cards From China, Hong Kong, Switzerland , Belarus and South Korea

Here I am back with a few cards . It's been a few days, actually it's been a week. Time flies and some say time waits for no man. I guess all that is true. Anyway on to the cards, the reason you are all reading this.

Today's first card comes to me from China. Kit Yu says she lives in Guangzhou where the 16th Guangzhou Asian Games were held last November. The card shows us a small Chinese shop with flashlights, pots and utensils for sale. The title on the card reads, The Hometown of the poet Quyuan. I'm not sure if this refers to Guangzhou or not. The long white stamp on top was issued for the 16th Asian Games in 2010. It is 1 in a set of 6. The 2 lower stamps were issued in 1997 and are 2 of a beautiful set of 6 Sculptures. I'd love to have the complete set in my collection.

Card 2 is from Hong Kong. It is a drawing of Hong Kong's first governor, Sir Henry Pottinger. The sender of this card wrote that there is a street named after him called Pottinger Street or Stone Slab Street because of its unique surface. The stamp on this one isn't shown but is 1 of the 16 bird definitives issued in 2006.

Now we have a card posted from Switzerland. It is a card showing a scene of Annecy , France. Located in southeastern France on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, it is 35 km south of Geneva. The building in the center was constructed as a prison but today is a museum of the history of Annecy. And the stamps. The bird stamp is 1 of 4 in a set issued in 2007 while the stamp on the right is 1 of 4 wheat stamps issued in 2008.

Next we have a card from Belarus. The building on the card is an impressive looking building, but I know nothing about it, as there is really nothing on the back of the card except for Best Wishes From Belarus. So there.
Usually on cards from Belarus, I mostly receive flower or animal definitives, so I was quite happy with the commemorative on this one. It was issued in 2009 on the 90th anniversary of the birth of G.K.Makarova, the great Belarusian actress.

The final card for this time is from South Korea. The card itself shows a Korean stamp issued in 2008 . It was 1 of 2 issued for the King Sejong Station. Turning it over , we see 2 stamps. I have nothing on the smaller stamp on the left and for the larger stamp , all I have is an issue date of 2011.

That's the report for this time. I will have a new country in my next update , as I received it only this afternoon. So look forward to that. Enjoy your postcards and stamps. Later.

Netherlands, Sacramento, A Little Aviation Art and Postcrossing's 6th Anniversary

Hello again, I'm back with a small update. I just have 3 postcards and a cover to show. I think I must still have a number of cards tied up in the mail backlog from the postal strike/lockout. Canada Post announced earlier that they had 40 million pieces of mail backlogged, and then yesterday they announced it is 70 million. I'm thinking that's a lot of postcards. On to the cards at hand. Two are from The Netherlands and one is from The U.S. The cover I mentioned is also from The U.S.

Card # 1 --- This card is an Images of Holland postcard. I do believe it's a series of postcards highlighting Holland. My card shows us flowers, cows and a windmill, all easily identifiable with The Netherlands. I received this card from a Postcrosser by the name of Debby. This card is number 1854 of my collection but more interestingly it is the 1000th card I have received throughh Postcrossing. I think that makes it a milestone card. I joined Postcrossing 1,953 days ago on March 09, 2006. That's almost 1 card from Postcrossing every second day. So Debby, you'll become part of My Postcrossing history and for that , Thank You. Debby used 3 stamps, of which the 2 large ones are quite nice. Unfortunately, I have no information about them.

Card # 2 --- Another card from The Netherlands and another one from the Images of Holland series. This one is all about windmills. It is from Veerle, a 14 year old Postcrosser who lives in Den Haag. She says that she visited Canada four years ago and drove all around the Canadian Rockies. I can vouch that makes a wonderful vacation. Veerle used just the everyday priority stamp from The Netherlands , which I stopped showing quite a while ago.

Card # 3--- This card from Sacramento, California gives us an evening look at the Sacramento River and downtown Sacramento. A 6 year old Postcrosser sent this one along. He used a stamp from a 2010 set of 10 Adopt a Shelter Pet, all showing cats and dogs.

Since the young Postcrosser above is just 6 years old, that leads me to the following tidbit. Postcrossing is celebrating 6 years of operation on July 14th. Postcrossing was opened to the public on July 14, 2005. Sadly , it took me 8 months to get wind of it and join. Postcrossing now has over 205,000 members in 205 countries. Those members have received over 7,796,000 postcards . Amazing ! Happy 6th Anniversary, Postcrossing . All I can say, if you love postcards and are not yet a member, join at postcrossing.com
You will love it, like I do.

My final bit tonight is a cover I received a short time ago. It is from Emilie who operates Winnie's Girl . If you visit her blog, to the left is a link to "Adopt Penguin Books Postcards". She has set up a postcard adoption project, inspired by PostMuse's Orphaned Postcard Project. Emilie recently bought a box of 100 Penguin Books Postcards. She offered them up for adoption and I adopted one. I requested Aircraft Recognition and it arrived in this envelope. The really nice part is the small aircraft that Emilie drew and fitted arouns my name and address. It is a King Air B200. Nice job, Emilie and Aircraft Recognition is on the way back to you. Thanks for allowing me to take part in your postcard adoption project.

That's is the update for this time. Hope you enjoyed it and if you did, how about letting me know via a comment. I'll be looking for yours.
Take care.

Cards From Sri Lanka, Mayotte, Puerto Rica and St. Maarten

Here I am again with a small update. Just 4 cards. No new countries here but I'll have something to say about that towards the end. Today's cards are compliments of Ravindra, Jean Pierre and Erin times 2 . First , let's have a look at Ravindra's card from Sri Lanka. On this card we see a part of Polonnaruwa, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1982. There are 2 great stamps used on this card. On the left is a 2011 Rabindranath Tagore stamp and on the right is a 2011 stamp showing a steel arch bridge in Ruwanwella.

Card # 2 is from Mayotte and comes from Jean Pierre. It is a nice picture of coral and tropical fish. On this card are 2 more great 2011 stamps. On the left is a stamp showing Mtsapere Mosque , while on the right is a bird stamp .

The last 2 cards are from Erin, sent when she was on a cruise sometime ago. The first one comes from San Juan , Puerto Rico. It gives us a look at Old San Juan. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the Unites States, located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but may not vote in US presidential elections. My only experience with Puerto Rico is having changed planes at Luis Munoz Martin International Airport a few years ago. Even though it is not considered part of the United States, Puerto Rico does use US stamps. On this card is the 1996 J. Cochran , pioneer pilot stamp and the 2004 American Toleware stamp.

Erin's second card is from St. Maarten, when it was a part of the Netherlands Antilles. I won't take this as the new country of Sint Maarten as it was sent before the independence of last October. The postmark reads Sint Maarten, and the card has a 1988 Netherlands Antilles stamp, one of a three stamp set. The card has a view of a beach market in Philipsburg.
I mentioned earlier that I would have something to say about new countries, so here it is. Up till yesterday I needed cards from just 25 more countries. Now that number is bumped back to 26, with the new country of South Sudan , gaining their independence yesterday. As always here is my plea, if you are going to Juba or any part of South Sudan, don't forget to send me a postcard.

That's about it for this time. Hope a bunch of cards arrives in tomorrow's mail. Till then, take care.

A New Update

Well, I'm back here after a considerable absence. I have a number of excuses for the lack of updates, since June 24th, my last one other than the short Canada Day special. First we endured the postal strike and subsequent lockout, then the Canada Day long weekend and now I'm in the middle of my little grandson Xander's ( he's just three years old) hospital stay. He's been in hospital now for 5 days and it looks like at least another week or so. The good news though is that he is on the road to recovery. So, I am getting a little break this evening and hope to get this update in. With the postal strike and lockout over, the mail has started to move once again , although I just read that Canada Post is still backlogged with 40 million pieces of mail. Here's hoping that most of that is postcards for me. A guy can dream , can't he ?

On to the cards I have for this time. First is a card from Cyprus. It is a map card, for all you map card collectors. It shows a map of the island super imposed over a few scenes of the island. Demetris sent me this card quite a while ago. We have 3 stamps to have a look at here. The stamp on the left was issued in 2003 and was issued for Refugees. The middle stamp , issued 1994, is from a set of 14 costume definitives. The stamp on the right was issued for Paralympic gold in 20005.
My next card is from Martinique. Posted in Fort De France, it is a view of Sainte Anne, a small village on the south east corner of the island. Martinique , a little bit of France in the Caribbean, is an overseas region of France. Elodie used 2 Marianne definitives from a set of 11 issued in 2005 and 1 of 2 Cacharel heart shaped stamps , also from 2005 .
Card # 3 comes from Nicaragua, in Central America. It gives us a look at one of the islets of Granada. The islets , consisting of 365 small islands are located in Lake Nicaragua, just southeast of the city of Granada . Diana used 2 stamps, of which, the stamp on the left, I could not find any information. The stamp on the right was issued in 2002 , to mark the 30th anniversary of the Managua earthquake.Now for a card from the United States, Homer, Alaska actually. Homer is known as "Where the road ends and the sea begins ." It is the westernmost point one can drive to in the U.S.A. The town was named in honor of gold prospector Homer Pennock who dropped anchor there in 1986 with a crew of 50 men and 1 woman. Martin's card is an evening look at the Homer yacht club with snow capped mountains in the background. Martin used a number of great stamps including an Alaska stamp, an Alaska highway stamp, a James Thurber stamp and a 2010 butterfly stamp.
I think I'll call it a day here. I was going to show one more card, but I''ll save it for next time. Take care and enjoy your cards and stamps, wherever you may be. Talk to you soon.

HAPPY CANADA 2011

HAPPY CANADA DAY ************ BONNE FETE DU CANADA

It's July 01st, Canada Day , 2011. Canada's 144th Birthday. A day for celebration and fun. There will be Parades, B-B-Q s, Swearing In of New Canadians , Great Weather, Fireworks and to top it all off the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are visiting my country Canada on their first official foreign visit.

Now, I want to wish all my Canadian readers a Big Happy Canada Day. Whether you're in Canada or somewhere else, it's your day to celebrate. Our country's 144th birthday . Still a very young country when one looks at many other countries worldwide.

As I have done on past Canada Days , I want to show a few Canadian postcards, cards that some of you might be lucky enough to receive in the days ahead. This year I have cards from a new selection of Canadian cards, all a little different . I hope you will enjoy looking at these cards and agree that there is certainly something Canadian about them. Enjoy.

First ---The Eh Team
Next we have ---A Canadian Stick Up

Finally--- Canada's Cool

Yes, these are different Canadian cards but I think they're great.

So , one more time, HAPPY CANADA DAY . Enjoy yourself today , no matter what your activities. Have fun to the Max.